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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27689671">b r e a t h e</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/spiritscript/pseuds/spiritscript'>spiritscript</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Haikyuu!!</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Character Study, Choking, Drowning, Happy Ending, Hirugami-centric, Introspection, M/M, Relationship Study, but only as metaphors, mentions of:</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 06:42:33</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,270</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27689671</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/spiritscript/pseuds/spiritscript</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p></p><blockquote>
  <p>Sachirou knows how it feels to fall—from grace, from the precipice of desire, through the rift between what he was and what he could be...</p>
  <p>Beside him, bright and clear, appeared another soul trapped in the resin of life—or at least one that should have been. </p>
  <p>By all intents and purposes he should have been. Trapped. Given up. </p>
  <p>Yet he was different, entirely nothing like what Sachirou could have ever expected of anyone.</p>
</blockquote> <p>Sachirou knows that sometimes, everyone needs a little help. And sometimes, it's the most extravagant boy that shows you the way.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Hirugami Sachirou/Hoshiumi Kourai</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>21</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>b r e a t h e</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p><b>PLEASE READ!!</b><br/>there are a number of mentions and light descriptions of: drowning, choking, falling.</p><p>this is also Hirugami centric and so does brush on self negativity and burn out/inadequacy </p><p> </p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>There's something about falling—something both restricting and freeing. The way your heart constricts and your breathing catches and your entire body becomes hyper focused on the fact that you’re falling, being dragged down and down—but oh, it’s also oh so light. </p><p>Sachirou knows how it feels to fall—from grace, from the precipice of desire, through the rift between what he was and what he could be. </p><p>Most specifically, he knows the fear of it. That moment when the litheness gives way, and your body begins to feel heavy as the ground doesn’t move but becomes closer and all you have are two choices. </p><p>The first is to close your eyes and wait for it to happen and hope the not knowing just when, will make it easier. </p><p>The second is to stare it down as it comes in worthless defiance just to be able to tell yourself, <em>I wasn’t weak, I didn’t back down.</em></p><p>Sometimes—just sometimes—falling can feel like drowning. Air and water. Both can steal the breath from lungs and choke so cruelly. Both, in a way, drag the body down; one to earth, one below the serene surface of clear blue. </p><p>Both commandeer the body and suspend it in a type of liminality, a before and after, like a creature on display in resin, killed before nature had dictated, encased forever mid movement and in a way still alive, not allowed to decay and return to the earth from whence it came and begin a new life.</p><p>Sachirou knows how it feels to drown—surrounded by pressure, by expectations, in fear of what was and what now is, means.</p><p>The consistency between it all is that they wanted to drag him down, and down he went until he dragged his own knuckles against the wall and bled red defeat, feeding himself to the earth to try and spite the air and the water because it was only a matter of time before the earth beneath him would shift like sand and in he would sink until his airways once again became clogged. </p><p>Or maybe it was done simply out of desperation. To finally feel something physical rather than the pent up pressure that wasn’t there, but still dug away at his mind, crumbling his soul.</p><p>What else was there to do?</p><p>When your life is a lie and all you can do is choke on what was, what could be, what will be, what you are, what you are not, what could be, what may not be, falling, drowning, giving up on holding yourself steady and let your vessel be carried away by air, by water, what is there to do but feed yourself to the earth?</p><p>Or so he thought.</p><p>Beside him, bright and clear, appeared another soul trapped in the resin of life—or at least one that should have been. </p><p>By all intents and purposes he should have been. Trapped. Given up. </p><p>Yet he was different, entirely nothing like what Sachirou could have ever expected of anyone.</p><p>He should have been trapped in that same resin, stiff and cold and incapable of movement. And when he wasn’t, then he should have been locked up and trapped in another way; if not stiff, then behind the tempered glass of a live display in some museum; he was, is, an anomaly of unfathomable depth. Scientists and analysts and psychologists could come and try to tame him into a modicum of understanding or conformity and each time he would smile and rap his knuckles against the barriers the world had forced up and around him, and will continue to force up around him, and they would, will, completely shatter before him and crunch beneath him, all the while his laugh would, will, be as bright and clear and tingling as the breaking and falling of that glass. </p><p>See, Hoshiumi Kourai learned to fly where others would fall. He learned to float and find land, as currents try to capture his feet. Both, air and water, could try to bekon him down, teasing and toying they’d sing their wistful tunes of, <em>isn’t it easier to let go and follow us?</em> Yet, every single time he would, will, laugh and tell these incorporeal concepts, <em>never underestimate me.</em></p><p>And quite literally, he pulled Sachirou out—of falling, of drowning, of letting himself return to the earth, and told him, <em>then stop.</em></p><p>Just. Stop.</p><p>Stop falling, stop drowning, stop fighting something that isn’t real.</p><p>Just breathe.</p><p>He wasn’t falling, he wasn’t drowning, there weren’t disembodied voices calling to him from great depths. His only enemy was ever himself; the gravity of his own mind having created those self built constraints that clanked around his ankles that told him there was only one way forward and that was down.</p><p>In that moment, as he was pulled from falling, drowning, sinking, he felt for the first time, and not the last, himself being dragged—no, not dragged, or pulled, or anything forceful—lead, shown, steered towards a greater cosmological force, like that of a black hole but more benevolent, like the guiding light of the north star for sailors to port. </p><p>Instead he grew. Not because of him, but beside him, symbiotically. There was space to climb up, higher. Spread out, wider. Dig down (not drown), lower. If he so pleased. </p><p>Wrapped in newfound purpose and understanding, he was able to see, breathe, feel.</p><p>Symbiotically because, as much as Kourai could fly, he cannot do it forever, even wings get tired. Even though he could float, water is fickle. Even though he shines, even stars and fires burn out. </p><p>So he learned how to help him too. Showed him how, when he began to fall, to drown, to seep into the earth, how to move, to walk, to breathe.</p><p>Until it was only them. Even apart it was always them. Like vines entangled, like sticky sap on fingertips, like dandelions floating. Even apart they were together, always migrating back to each other, constantly gravitating and circling each other.</p><p>Once again, Sachirou fell, not drowned, not sunk, not pulled, not forced, not dragged. It was not from grace, nor the precipice or desire, nor between the cracks of what he was and what he could be.</p><p>It was gentle. Like a feather falling, delicately twirling, and landing so softly in the arms of a man who was once a boy that taught him how to live. Told him that he could stop. Showed him how to breathe. Guided him and held his fragile heart in his hands and stroked it gently, urging it to beat, and feel, until it became living once again, and Sachirou learned how to feel something new, something beautiful. </p><p>Something that felt like falling, like drowning, like sinking, but into something incredible and beautiful and warm and bright and ethereal. Something that made your heart beat faster, and your blood to rush, and your breath to hike and catch with words you never thought you could say. That you once felt like you never could feel.</p><p>Sachirou knows what it’s like to hurt. To feel empty. Dark emptiness inhabiting where marrow should be in your bones, weighing you down to doom.</p><p>Sachirou knows what it’s like to love. To feel so full, to vibrate in the vessel tessellated with every moment you’ve shared and those you’ve been apart, with every touch real and not, to inhabit a body that cannot hold your love. </p><p>Hiruagmi knows what it’s like to find a safe haven, solid ground and a safe shore, and to be it back in turn.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Thank you for reading!! I love these two and I promise the next work I have for them is far more fun!!!</p><p>If you wanna let me know what you think, feel free to do so here or on <a href="https://twitter.com/ohmiyamy/status/1331039680498978821">twitter</a>!!</p><p>And thanks to <a href="https://twitter.com/d_fenestrate">K</a> for the beta!</p><p>Hope you have a wonderful day/night!!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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